Help with pictures, faces out of focus

[preacher]

Someone please take a look at these photo and tell me what is wrong. The faces are bluried and the white clothes are focused. I'm not keen the metering, but the single focus light always went to the white clothes.

http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll127/ralphhawthorne/IMG_7181.jpg

http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll127/ralphhawthorne/IMG_7185.jpg
http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll127/ralphhawthorne/IMG_7180.jpg

[FlyingPhotog]

Were you choosing the focus point or were you letting the camera do it?

[preacher]

I let the camera do it with one center focus

[Karl Johnston]

No non-awkward way to put this but I know that auto focus can be less reliable when trying to focus on darker parts of a scene than on the lighter ones. Only explanation I can come up with is maybe the camera was using all the focus points at once and, thus, the more in focus region is the white part of the photo.

AI servo mode selected or one shot? Could be missing focus when re-focusing on one shot.

A round through unsharp mask will make these photos sharp enough in print, I wouldn't fret too much

[preacher]

I was shooting in one shot, I'm not familar with the unmask stuff. I have the Photoshop elements 6 but not sure how to use it yet. I was using Picasa.

[S.Horton]

A few things come to mind -- First, AF works with contrast, and that has nothing to do with light/dark color in itself, but rather difference in adjacent pixels.

Read:
http://night-ray.blogspot.com/2006/09/canon-auto-focus-technical-information.html
http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/electronicdevic_sfah.htm

When I look at the photos, #1 and #3 I would say are critically sharp, unless you tell me that those are post-processed and sharpened already. #2 actually looks like camera shake to me, not an OOF shot.

If those are un-cropped images, and you were using center-point AF, then I think the AF actually did its job.

I do not shoot weddings (couldn't handle the stress that well!), but when I shoot people I tend to set a single point right on the eyes, or I go MF to be sure I have the eyes in the focal plane.

Finally, f/2.8 would not give you much room for the (imperfect) AF system to miss.

[preacher]

I sharpened them in Picasa, when I look at pictures taken in P or Auto outside they are clear as a whistle.

[preacher]

These are out doors shots with my 40d Sigma 24-70 2.8 in Auto/P
http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll127/ralphhawthorne/IMG_7076.jpg
http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll127/ralphhawthorne/IMG_7239.jpg
http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll127/ralphhawthorne/IMG_7241.jpg

[Karl Johnston]

Try slowing down the shutter speed and compensate by using a monopod to reduce the camera shake. Could well be just OOF because of camera shake.

If a monopod is not available, try resting the camera on a car hood or a stable surface (in future).

Increasing the ISO value may also help, but beware of going too high; too much ISO will increase your camera's perceptive of light (allowing you to use a faster shutter speed) but will also decrease image quality as you go higher.